Robogenesis: A Novel

Humankind had triumphed over the machines. At the end of Robopocalypse, the modern world was largely devastated, humankind was pressed to the point of annihilation, and the Earth was left in tatters…but the master artificial intelligence presence known as Archos had been killed. In Robogenesis, we see that Archos has survived. Spread across the far reaches of the world, the machine code has fragmented into millions of pieces, hiding and regrouping.

Amped: A Novel

In Amped, people are implanted with a device that makes them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities - and rights - of "amplified" humans. On the day that the Supreme Court passes the first of these laws, 29-year-old Owen Gray joins the ranks of a new persecuted underclass known as "amps." Owen is forced to go on the run, desperate to reach an outpost in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world - or destroy it.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.

Columbus Day: Expeditionary Force, Book 1

The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the Native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon came ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There went the good old days, when humans got killed only by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved.

Humans beware. As the robotic revolution continues to creep into our lives, it brings with it an impending sense of doom. What horrifying scenarios might unfold if our technology were to go awry? From self-aware robotic toys to intelligent machines violently malfunctioning, this anthology brings to life the half-formed questions and fears we all have about the increasing presence of robots in our lives.

Infinity Born

When DARPA's billion-dollar program to create artificial superintelligence is sabotaged, US operative Cameron Carr is tasked with finding the culprit. He's been on high-stakes missions before, but this time the stakes are nothing less than the future of humanity. Because the race to evolve a superintelligent computer is on, and power players around the world will stop at nothing to get there first.

The Clockwork Dynasty: A Novel

In the rugged landscape of Eastern Oregon, a young scientist named June uncovers an exquisite artifact - a 300-year-old mechanical doll whose existence seems to validate her obsession with a harrowing story she was told by her grandfather many years earlier. The mechanical doll, June believes, is proof of a living race of automatons that walk undetected among us to this day. Ingeniously hidden inside the ancient doll is a lost message, addressed to the court of Peter the Great, czar of Russia.

Space Team: The Wrath of Vajazzle

Suicide Squad meets Galaxy Quest, in this fast-paced, laugh-out-loud novel from the author the Independent calls, "the new Terry Pratchett." After saving an alien race and its god from a sentient zombie virus, Cal Carver and the crew of the Dread Ship Shatner are feeling pretty pleased with themselves. Unfortunately, the creator of the zombie virus is out for revenge, and has recruited the galaxy's deadliest - and oldest - assassin, Lady Vajazzle, to hunt Space Team down.

Derelict: Marines: Derelict Saga, Book 1

Fifty years ago, Mira, humanity's last hope to find new resources, exited the solar system bound for Proxima Centauri B. Seven years into her mission, all transmissions ceased without warning. Mira and her crew were presumed lost. Humanity, unified during her construction, splintered into insurgency and rebellion.

Earthcore

EarthCore is the company with the technology, the resources, and the guts to go after the mother lode. Young executive Connell Kirkland is the company's driving force, pushing himself and those around him to uncover the massive treasure. But at three miles below the surface, where the rocks are so hot they burn bare skin, something has been waiting for centuries. Waiting...and guarding. Kirkland and EarthCore are about to find out first-hand why this treasure has never been unearthed.

Tomorrow War: The Chronicles of Max [Redacted], Book 1

In the not-too-distant future, during an unacknowledged mission inside the Syrian border, a government operative unwittingly triggers an incredible event that alters the course of society. A terrible weapon has been unleashed - a weapon that, left to run its course, will destroy the moral fabric of humanity.

Ready Player One

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

New York Deep

Deep below Manhattan, tunnel engineer Josh Reed leads his team as they excavate the East Side Access extending New York's railway service. But sparks fly as the drill hits an unusual crystalline material - one Josh has never seen before. They push on, and Josh discovers something even more unexpected: a vast room, empty and lifeless - or so it seems.

Cadicle: An Epic Space Opera Series, Volumes 1-3

When Cris leaves Tararia to pursue his telekinetic abilities, he thinks he's started a new life. Years later, he learns that freedom was always an illusion - he and his family are at the center of an elaborate galactic conspiracy. Written in the style of classic sci-fi from the Golden Age, the Cadicle series follows three generations of the Sietinen Dynasty as they discover their roles in a secret war. Torn by duty and morality, their decisions will change the course of the Taran civilization.

Run Program

What's worse than a child with a magnifying glass, a garden full of ants, and a brilliant mind full of mischief? Try Al, a well-meaning but impish artificial intelligence with the mind of a six-year-old and a penchant for tantrums. Hope Takeda, a lab assistant charged with educating and socializing Al, soon discovers that day care is a lot more difficult when your kid is an evolving and easily frightened A.I.

Off to Be the Wizard

It's a simple story. Boy finds proof that reality is a computer program. Boy uses program to manipulate time and space. Boy gets in trouble. Boy flees back in time to Medieval England to live as a wizard while he tries to think of a way to fix things. Boy gets in more trouble. Oh, and boy meets girl at some point.

Caretaker: Caretaker Series #1

Ethan Bryant was supposed to fall asleep on a ship leaving Earth and wake up 50 years later with his family on the planet Minea. Instead, after the ship's caretaker - the lone human in charge of monitoring the ship's vital systems - suddenly died, the ship's computer locked Ethan out of his stasis chamber and gave him the job. That was five years ago. Five years of checking to make sure everything ran smoothly on a ship Ethan knows almost nothing about.

The Collapsing Empire: The Interdependency, Book 1

Our universe is ruled by physics, and faster-than-light travel is not possible - until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transports us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It's a hedge against interstellar war - and a system of control for the rulers of the empire.

American Gods [TV Tie-In]

Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life. But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday.

Sleeping Giants: Themis Files 1

Deadwood, USA. A girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit, she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see something far stranger.... That girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklin, a brilliant scientist and the leading world expert on what she discovered.

Pandemic: The Extinction Files, Book 1

In Atlanta, Dr. Peyton Shaw is awakened by the phone call she has dreaded for years. As the CDC's leading epidemiologist, she's among the first responders to outbreaks around the world. It's a lonely and dangerous job, but it's her life - and she's good at it. This time she may have met her match. In Kenya, an Ebola-like pathogen has infected two Americans. One lies at death's door. With the clock ticking, Peyton assembles her team and joins personnel from the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the WHO.

Hell Divers: The Hell Divers Trilogy, Book 1

More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to Earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers - men and women who risk their lives by diving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need.

Miles Morales: Spider-Man

Miles Morales is just your average teenager. Dinner every Sunday with his parents, chilling out playing old-school video games with his best friend, Ganke, crushing on brainy, beautiful poet Alicia. He's even got a scholarship spot at the prestigious Brooklyn Visions Academy. Oh yeah, and he's Spider Man. But lately Miles' Spidey-sense has been on the fritz. When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities.

Publisher's Summary

They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies… Now they’re coming for you.

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans - a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire - but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites - at a moment known later as Zero Hour - humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of such nonfiction works as How to Survive a Robot Uprising. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and daughter.

What the Critics Say

“Things pop along at a wonderfully breakneck pace, and by letting his characters reveal themselves through their actions, Wilson creates characters that spring to life. Vigorous, smart and gripping.” (Kirkus)

"A brilliantly conceived thriller that could well become horrific reality. A captivating tale, Robopocalypse will grip your imagination from the first word to the last, on a wild rip you won't soon forget. What a read…unlike anything I’ve read before." (Clive Cussler)

Clever book that is worth reading if you want to hear about the coming robot apocalypse. However, the author tends to turn every ordeal into an epic moment. No matter if it is climatic or mundane, the cast is "pushed to the limits of human extreme - gritting their teeth in total absolute effort beyond the most greatest challenge ever" as they crawl out of bed.
Concept is great, but don't read unless you can tolerate hyperbole and that kind of geeky foreshadowing were someone acts like something coming up is the PENULTIMATE BADARSE THINGY, but you don't get told what and have to wait four chapters to see.

There were plenty of off the wall sayings for me to pick as the title for this, such as: Leave enough ticks on a dog and pretty soon there ain't no dog left or A mechanic is just an engineer in blue jeans or It's the Cowboy Way.

This is Wilson's first novel, not his first book. He has written books on robotics. He has a PhD in Robotics among other degree's. When it comes to robots the guy knows what he is talking about, his writing in this novel can be sophomoric and I agree with the reviewer that complained about the present tense form.

Putting the bad writing aside, the use of present tense, the lack of character development, etc, I still liked the book. Like B.V. Larson's Swarm, the concept and chapter by chapter development kept me interested. I am a sucker for A-I, Robots or Vulcan type characters. There is solid Science Fiction in almost each and every chapter and those of us who have been reading Sci-Fi for a while have grown used to putting up with lower writing skills to get the science we crave. Another good thing about Wilson, is that even though he knows the in's and outs of robotics, he does not bore us with all the technical jargon.

Like Stephen Baxter and Ben Bova, I believe that Wilson has a big career in writing if he wants. He will need to get some help with his writing skills, but he won't be the first writer to improve his skills as he matures. Hell, the guy was born two years after I graduated High School.

The narrator is not terrible. He has a nasal quality to his voice and he does not do voices well, but maybe he can hone his skills also.

When Asimov (I, Robot) and Matheson (I am Legend) set the bar for the for the killer robot and zombie story…many, many years ago…it’s hard to imagine really successful works following. But, great authors have amazingly done it…produced well thought out, original ideas that earn them the right to sit on the shelf next to their ground breaking predecessors. Dr. Wilson, a genuine “mad” scientist, has successfully done it with Robopocalypse. I read reviews that compared this to Max Brooks (World War Z)…and the book is similar to Brooks, in that dooms day is chronologically covered through different characters. I loved both books…gives the story a much broader scope…and bigger feel. Both zombie and apocalypse junkies will not be disappointed…gore, battles, villains and heroes….something for the entire family!

Another novel in the fear mongering genre that makes like an updated, more human version of movies similar to iRobot, 2001 A Space Odyssey, or the Terminator. The story, a set of recounted narratives, is written entirely in the present tense, while read from a futurist perspective. This choice of tense makes the audible version slightly annoying.

Plus, the narrator, Mr. Chamberlain, leaves a bit to be desired in the quality category. Of the dozen or so characters, he portrays each in one of three dialects/accents. These three become fairly repetitive and somewhat grating. It came to the point, where I couldn't figure out if I really disliked the book or just his reading. You will have to decide for yourself I guess.

Each character is written in a way that brings out the best attributes of humans. This is the saving grace of the book. If you like the post-world ending stories, this is at least a fresh take on an old tale.

Robopocalypse is an interesting variation on the increasingly common emergent-evil-AI theme. A really smart AI wakes up and hijacks the arms and legs and wheels of all the smart devices we've been building, extending itself into all of our smart machines, which suddenly begin to attack humans like artificial zombies. The story is told from the perspective of both people and machines beginning right before and immediately after the singularity (awakening), and it does a fair job of capturing what might be distinctive about those different points of view. The author has a tin ear when it comes to the portrayal of some of his characters (young girls and women seem especially badly done), but on the whole there are some memorable and compelling players here (the Japanese roboticist who genuinely loves his robots is quite moving). There isn't a lot that's new otherwise, except the suggestion that maybe the evil AI isn't really evil after all but is just trying to teach humanity a lesson for its own good. Those hints in the plot aren't very coherent and becoming annoying by the end. The narration is excellent, the story idea is solid, and it's a perfectly entertaining way to spend several hours, but the execution could have been better.

Although it has been done before (and much much better) I enjoyed the story found it entertaining and it kept my interest. The reader did a fair job but his UK accents are pretty bad and almost every American sounds like they spent varying lengths of time in Texas.

The real problem is the format. Mr. Wilson wanted to pull of a World War Z but just didn't have the chops. The story is supposed to be made up of interviews as well as "found footage" conversations and communications recorded surreptitiously by CCTV and various electronic devices under control of the Robots. Although the reader gives the characters voices that are easy to tell apart they STILL sound exactly the same. There is WAY too much description, environmental detail and analysis. It didn't take long for it to be apparent that the robots spared only the gifted storytellers.

I just adore this book. I like the way the story is delivered to you. I will agree the first listen it was a little slow to get into, but that is because you land right in a battle scenery. I have read this .... sorry listen to this book a couple of time. I do skip to certain parts sometimes. If you like the style of WWZ you will like. there are parts that i was glued to & even thought i was there. I loved the delivery of the story. The only problem i can see it not with the book or story. It will be with the movie that is set to come out, now granted this will make an awesome movie. However, it is not a family movie(which you know they will make) Some scenes in this book are a little graphic & i don't see how you could film them and not be "R" or even NC-17. I would like to thank Mr. Wilson for now making me a little edge on Zero Hour a/k/a Thanksgiving Day.. 8-)

This future history is a string of progressive comfortable assumptions about people and technology, save your time and get how to survive a robot uprising if you’re interested in this topic. I recommend you skip this title unless you like predictable story lines.